Avenue Q

We enjoyed a musical show tonight, Avenue Q at Stockholm's Maximteatern.
Lots of fun! And absolutely not for kids. Gosh, never have I heard so many four letter words in a musical or theater before, but hey - it worked. :-) It's a little bit 90's, and perhaps a little bit too American. But I can forgive them for that for the smile it left with me. :-)

The singers were awesome, fantastic voices and I just loved their acting. The fact that it's a puppet-show (Muppets/Sesame Street like) did not prevent the actors carrying the dolls from acting, it was rather cool. :-)

Outstanding voice - Cecilia Wrangel (no web page)
Best acting and pretty darn good voice - Fredrik Lycke
Slick sounding smooth singer - Jakob Stadell

Review in Swedish SvD. Radio interview + photo shoot Rix FM.

Go see if you have a chance. :-)

Too tired to WoW

And I was really looking forward to an entire evening dedicated to Warcraft. Dang.
And the TV is disabled (a couple of cables are missing) so there's no vegetating in front of the TV either... *sigh*
I'm too tired to blog too.

But I had a fantastic day, really. So I shouldn't complain. :-)

Went for the annual checkup with the car and it got approved without a single comment. The officer even complimented my choice of car, he said the larger models of the same thing had lots of problems but my model and year model are the best. Isn't that just what you want to hear from someone that checks cars for a living? *happy*
I was happy I got it through because if I had to repair something I possibly couldn't have afforded the new summer tyres I desperately needed. So I went straight to the tyre company and had them put on brand new tyres afterwards.
The sun was shining, I heard the sound of seagulls for the first time (is there anyone else than me that think that is a fantastic sound of summer??).

So if I'm tired now I shouldn't complain, it's been a good day. :-)

New house

Jesus, we bought a house. :-D

Believe that! I went there today together with a building inspector, to fulfill my obligations as buyer. It was not funny.

There are a lot of things to think about with a house. There's a flat roof. There's ventilation. There are rotten windows. There's outside panelling. There's drainage around the foundation. There's garage roof leakage.
There's a garden that's all mud.

Oh well.
The building inspector promised to finalise his formal notes quickly, then I need to have a chat with the insurance company about insuring the thing (unless the building instructor advice us against buying that is).

Got to find SOME way to keep busy, eh?

Unemployment

Unemployment. There's a fierce debate going on in Sweden right now since the new government suggested that unemployed should have to move to where the jobs are from day one of unemployment.

I am not sure what to think about this.

Part of me agrees. It is (excuse me) stupid to insist on a right to remain in your home for as long as you please despite not being able to support yourself, if there is a job available someplace else.

But of course there must be exceptions. Families. It's not a good idea to uproot and split a family because one parent is unemployed and must move 1000km's to get a job. Same with people who are unable to find suitable work because of various physical conditions, there's got to be a limit.
Then again, it should not be impossible to support a family on one salary either. Which it is if you are a sub nurse or cleaner or belong to some other category of professional which we (yes, us - the Swedish society) have decided is not worth as much as the rest of us (pet peeve this, that a nurse - who tends to my every need, to the young and the elders every need until the very end, something so vitally important and wonderful - is not considered worth anything).

If we were able to support a small family on one salary in this country we would have a whole different situation. Sure, equality experts would say it would be us, the women who "paid" for that with the usual stuff (no pension, no value). But what's to say it's a man's job to bring home that money? If women were paid equally we could do the money-making stuff just as good as any man... *sigh*

But I still think it's stupid to insist on staying somewhere just because you want to and expect the rest of us to gladly pay for it.

And yes yes, I know there would be parts of the country which would be completely emptied of people. But maybe that's natural? Maybe that's better for all of us? If we stopped polluting all parts of our land just because "we always did"?
If there are no jobs - there's got to be something wrong, right? If you can't start a company where you live, perhaps you should move - or at least come up with some serious suggestions to how we should change the way we do business in order to manage stuff more remotely?
I honour the companies who's opened so-called service bureaus in more remote areas. It's SMART. :-) They get cheap labour, almost no rent and if they're lucky they do most of their work electronically so all they need is internet - not trucks and trains (e.g. good for the environment).

Stomach flue

I've been home with a nasty stomach bug the entire week so far. Bleh.
Though, hubby's got it worse so I shouldn't be complaining.

I get surprising amounts of work done, I will have to insist on working from home in the future. Not a lot, because I hope some of my value comes from being accessible by my team and 'being there'. And I'm sure I'd go nuts if I didn't have a job to go to.
But the fact that I don't get disturbed every ten to twenty minutes makes me _finish_ things and it's a wonderful feeling.
I was thinking I might get a chess-timer and punch it every time I get disturbed, just to see how many hours of actual work I fit into an average day.
Umm, not that those "disturbances" aren't my job, because it really is. But to be able to explain to myself exactly why I never seem to have time to finish everything that needs to be done every day.


I will work from home tomorrow too, hopefully my stomach won't do the elevator thing again.

I have had to skip my training as well and I can't help wondering how much that influences how I feel? I should at least make it outside for a brisk walk, just to get the system moved about. But I feel weak just thinking about it at the moment... Bleh!

Offside (Swedish)

Offside (imdb link) - this was not the "Offside" film I thought it was, instead it was a good honest feelgood film in Swedish. Or, quite a lot of English come to think of it. Since the story line involved an ex soccer-pro from Liverpool. :-)

Quite predictable, but still with a lot of integrity. I enjoyed the scenery and the spirit it conveyed despite a few ingredients which were a little too 'typical' (perhaps something I as a Swede am more sensitive than others?).

It was heartwarming, and well worth the time watching.

The Swedish movie site: www.offsidefilmen.se


Oh, which one did I think it was? --> imdb link

The ant bully

The ant bully (imdb link) - a sweet story for children. I liked the effects though, and I'm a sucker for animated movies so there you go. :-)

	Julia Roberts	...	Hova (voice)
	Nicolas Cage	...	Zoc (voice)
	Meryl Streep	...	Queen Ant (voice)
	Paul Giamatti	...	Stan Beals (voice)
	Zach Tyler	...	Lucas Nickle (voice)
	Regina King	...	Kreela (voice)
	Bruce Campbell	...	Fugax (voice)
	Lily Tomlin	...	Mommo (voice)